After the November shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., allegedly by an Afghan national who worked with the CIA in Afghanistan and received asylum in the U.S. earlier this year, the Trump administration paused and is reviewing all immigration applications from Afghanistan, and 18 other travel ban countries.
The George W. Bush Presidential Center responded on social media on Friday: “The actions of a man charged with a heinous crime have derailed the lawful U.S. immigration applications of people from 18 countries so far, including Afghanistan. Afghans are facing uncertainty at home and in the U.S. Read why we can’t turn our back on Afghans and other immigrants due to one man’s crime.”
The actions of a man charged with a heinous crime have derailed the lawful U.S. immigration applications of people from 18 countries so far, including Afghanistan. Afghans are facing uncertainty at home and in the U.S.
Read why we can’t turn our back on Afghans and other… pic.twitter.com/H8imyTJNnB
— George W. Bush Presidential Center (@TheBushCenter) December 19, 2025
The Bush Institute argued: “Instead of targeting all Afghans lawfully living or visiting the U.S., elected leaders should investigate what, if anything, could have been done to prevent this tragedy.”
The Institute added that the U.S. should support Afghans who have “risked their lives over the last two decades in the pursuit of a prosperous future for all, working in partnership with the United States. They shouldn’t bear the burden of one man’s heinous crimes.”
Trump loyalist Mike Davis, a key adviser on legal issues and judicial selection in the second Trump administration, replied to the Bush Institute: “ICYMI: Getting two standing ovations at his first speech since leaving office, former President George W. Bush said that if President Obama wants help, ‘he can pick up the phone and call.’ Otherwise, Bush said: ‘He deserves my silence.’
Davis added: “‘There’s plenty of critics in the arena,’ Bush told a crowd in Calgary, Canada. ‘I think it’s time for the ex-president to tap dance off the stage and let the current president have a go at solving the world’s problems. If he wants my help and I agree with him, I’ll give it.’”
[Note: As a college student in support of George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign, Davis built the largest student group on a liberal campus at the University of Iowa. Davis eventually worked in the Office of Political Affairs under Bush, and helped future Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch land a job at the DOJ in 2005. According to an email archived at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, Gorsuch wrote to Davis: “I’d enjoy the chance to sit down over lunch and thank you personally.”]
Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller replied more curtly and dismissively to the Bush Institute’s post, writing: “As Americans get ready to celebrate Christmas, the George W. Bush Presidential Center is very earnestly posting about the urgent need for unfettered migration from the most dangerous nations on planet earth, while effectively conceding some of these migrants will try to kill us.”